Of Love and Other Things

Why do we fall in love? Do people look for the heart or is it just the carnal need? What exactly is LOVE? Well I have been musing over this for a long time now. Youths:  teenagers claim to love each other. What do they actually mean by that? Is love all about holding hands, taking tours of all the malls possible and telling each other like 48 times in the 24 hours, how much they love?

But then what? What happens next? They get married after staying “in love” for 10 years and then the love disappears like the morning mist. So that brings me back to the question, “what was all that love about?” is it just a pretence? Is it just another way to keep oneself occupied? Or is it that the person I was “going out” with for 10 years suddenly changed when I started living with him?

I have often wondered what makes us fall in love, and I have been told that unlike animals, we humans look for things more than sex in our partner.  But if that is true, then why does one dress up? Why is one coy? Why does one want to smell good? Why does the 14 year old try his utmost best to hide the awkwardness in his voice?  Why does one try so hard to impress the other? And when the other likes these attributes, we call it “turn ons”.

Why do we need these special attributes to express our sexual urges? Are we too ashamed to say it out loud? Or are we scared that we will be misunderstood as complete sex maniacs?

There are two extreme ideas about sex. One group wants to believe that sex is something very bad and shouldn't be spoken about. Another group however is obsessed with sex and can’t think about anything else. But I will tell you what is amusing. To observe the people who have both the extreme ideas packed together in their heads.

They are the most interesting of all. They are obviously a sad case to study, but they are the best example of self-contradictions. On the one hand they can’t help but think only about sex, and on the other hand they scold themselves for thinking that way.  Who are they trying to convince? Themselves?

 “Loving someone” is a lost story nowadays I guess. It all comes down to one thing: getting married, reproducing, getting bored, and getting divorced. What would human beings do without procreation? To stay in love for a long long time, without procreation, one has to pay the price. Romantic dinners, costly gifts. Diamonds and shoes and what not.

Love now means looking at the bright future. otherwise it is a lost cause. A wasted effort. I have heard, girls fall in love after looking at the car the boy owns. They don’t look for the heart any longer. They look for a bright future. The rest will, they say, fall in place.

It is when I muse and ramble and think aloud like this, that I feel that knotted pain in my chest.  The “what ifs” come back to me. What if I was born in another generation, another time, when the attitude towards sex was healthy and love meant doing something for the person I love. Love meant searching for the heart. Love meant talking and listening. Love meant just sitting beside each other and being comfortable. Love meant, bringing out the best in each other.  Love meant longing for your love… feeling the desire to find happiness in making another human being happy.

Adorable Bundles Of Joy

I could not resist sharing this. Animals can be so adorable and full of emotions. Maybe this is the reason I pray all the time that if rebirth is not a myth, I would like to be someone walking on all fours, living in the jungles or flying in the blue sky.Yes I would miss reading maybe, but then, everything else is going to be  bliss. 

Birthday, Expectations and Machines

Gift From Google

 I have been waiting to put up this post for a long time now. I have been writing and rewriting and sitting on my bum about it. But maybe I was waiting for a right time to put it on.

Recently, I have been thinking about the value of life and love. As we grow up and walk the path of life, we come across so many people. Some leave a mark, by doing something good for you. Some leave a mark by hurting you badly and then there are some, who just stay there forever. SO what matters the most? Or rather who matters the most? The ones you loved and still yearn for? Or the ones who love you? I don’t know. I have been looking for this answer for a long time.

There is a lifelong yearning, I think. Urge to know who would really miss you when you are gone. As a very old friend always says, “I would like to see who cries for me when I am gone.”  No matter how much ever I scold him, for always telling me this and thinking about his own death, I can’t help agreeing with him on the point that this is the most intense human feeling, and perhaps our biggest fear. A fear that no one cares and loves me and everyone is just pretending until we are around. When I am gone, no one will really care, and I will be forgotten in a jiffy.

I don’t know if it is normal but even at 23, I am really excited about my birthday. Yes I love to get calls exactly at midnight and still keep track of who is the first one to wish me. I know I am too old to gush about birthdays, but then I think what matters to me is the question: “To whom do I really matter.”

I think the root cause of this hurt is the expectation. The expectation which we go on carrying in our hearts. The expectation that so and so will call me, and when I do not get that call, it is just a sheet of gloom covering my heart.

But I think machines are making us happier than human beings these days. Yesterday I turned 23, and to be very honest, I was excited about it for almost a week. But the spirits dampened when I hardly got calls at midnight.  My fault may be because I have changed my number and only a handful knew my number, but even those did not call. It was only relatives.  I went off to sleep, with a sad heart, and woke up cribbing to someone how no one wished me, and I did not matter to anyone. However Google surprised me pleasantly by giving me a special doodle. Of course it was visible only to me,  but still it was a pleasant surprise. After all someone very unexpected remembered and surprised me pleasantly.

I always knew that I should expect the unexpected, but at the age of 23, I realised it. The sooner we learn to be ready for the unexpected, the easier it would be for us to be less gloomy and complaining.  Human nature is too complex to understand.  People value trivial things a bit too much. Emotions come second to them.  So would it be too much to say that we are nearing the dark ages, when machines would take control of the world, and human beings would just be slaves, kept prisoner in some underground dungeon?

Happy new year to all.